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1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.1.5Lee Speigel – Close Encounters and UFO History – September 12, 2017http://www.openminds.tv/lee-speigel-close-encounters-and-ufo-history-september-12-2017/40930
http://www.openminds.tv/lee-speigel-close-encounters-and-ufo-history-september-12-2017/40930#respondWed, 13 Sep 2017 00:34:06 +0000http://www.openminds.tv/?p=40930Open Minds UFO Radio: Lee Speigel is a journalist who has spent much of his career covering UFOs. He has worked for ABCNews.com,AOL News, and, most recently, the Huffington Post. He is now working with filmmaker James Fox on a script for an upcoming UFO documentary.

In 1975, Lee produced a documentary record album, “UFOs: The Credibility Factor,” for CBS Inc. It marked the first time that military and scientific voices came together to disclose their personal UFO encounters and to call for government recognition of the phenomenon. Soon after he aided the Prime Minister of Granada in an attempt to get the United Nations to officially investigate the UFO phenomenon. During this effort he worked with UFO research pioneers Dr. J. Allen Hyenk and Jacques Vallee, and was invited to meet Steven Spielberg, who wished to aide the group in their efforts.

In this interview, we discuss the recent re-release of Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Lee’s visit with Spielberg, and how Hynek and Vallee felt about the movie. Hynek served as a consultant to Spielberg on the film, and Vallee was the inspiration for one of the main characters.

The official UFO Hearing held at the United Nations Special Political Committee on November 28, 1978 was undoubtedly one of the great milestones in the history of ufology, particularly when it comes to its recognition by key international institutions. While photos of this event have been published many times, I am not aware of any footage ever been shown in a UFO documentary or news story. Last week I received a box of old videos that had somehow gotten separates from the rest of my UFO collection, and while looking at the videotapes, I rediscovered one that had been given to me many years ago by the late Colman von Keviczky, the director of ICUFON (Intercontinental UFO Network) and veteran New York ufologist. The tape included raw footage of the UN UFO Hearing and press conference shot by Colman himself, who was a professional cameraman.

As an officer in the Royal Hungarian General Staff, Major von Keviczky had created the audiovisual department at the Hungarian army in the years just prior the World War Two. After the war, Colman worked as a cameraman for the American occupation forces in Heidelberg, West Germany, until immigrating to the USA in 1952. His interest in UFOs was precisely triggered by the big American flying saucer wave of 1952. In the mid-sixties, Colman worked—again as cameraman and film editor—for the UN Public Information office, and it was while working at the UN that he approached Secretary General U Thant with a project to create a UN UFO agency, the first ever proposed. The UN UFO story and that of the initiative by the Prime Minister of Grenada, sir Eric Gairy, to create a UFO “department or agency” at the United Nations, was discussed in full by this author on the third issue of Open Minds magazine. We published again an update to this story when a batch of documents relating to the Grenadian UFO initiative belonging to the British UN Mission in New York was included in the last release of UFO files from the British Ministry of Defence.

The UN UFO Hearing, followed by a press conference and a reception given by Prime Minister Gairy at the UN Headquarters Building in New York on that fateful day of November 28, 1978, brings also personal memories for me since this was the very first UFO event I ever attended and the first time I met giants in the field of ufology like Dr. Hynek, Jacques Vallee and Stanton Friedman. Although I didn’t know him personally at the time, one of those present was Colman von Keviczky, who lived in Queens, NY, and would soon afterwards become my ufological mentor. I remember seeing Colman asking a tough question at the press conference, but I didn’t notice (or maybe I did but don’t recall it now after so many years) that he had brought a motion picture camera and was able to film a few clips of both the hearing and the press conference. Colman had at least two movie cameras—a 16 mm and a super 8 mm—and since the footage was given to me already transferred to videotape I am not sure which camera he used in 1978.

The footage you are about to see lasts 1:15 min. and begins with a shot of the hall of the Special Political Committee where the UFO Hearing was held; it then shows Dr. J. Allen Hynek addressing the delegates and you can see Prime Minister Gairy sitting behind the astronomer; the camera then pans over the tables where the delegates sit, showing many empty seats; back to Hynek and the screen where a montage of UFO footage (both films and still photos) prepared by Lee Spiegel for Hynek’s Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) was shown—because the camera was far from the screen and you can barely see the footage, we have edited it out; next you’ll see a second panelist addressing the committee, Lt. Col. Lawrence Coyne of the U.S. Army, who talked about his close encounter with a UFO on a Huey Army Reserve helicopter near Mansfield, Ohio, on October 18, 1973, during the peak of the 1973 American UFO wave. Gairy was careful to point out in his introduction that Coyne was speaking on his own behalf and not as a representative of the U.S. military.

Von Kevicky’s camera then switches to the press conference, which happened right after the end of the morning session of the UFO Hearing and which, as opposed to the Special Political Committee, was packed. You see here the speakers’ panel starting from the right with Grenada’s Education Minister, Wellington Friday, who was the number two man for the Grenadian UFO initiative, Prime Minister Gairy, and Dr. Hynek smoking his pipe—that itself shows how many decades have passed since the event—and then shows two of the other panelists, Dr. Jacques Vallee and Lt. Col. Coyne; the camera then pans quickly through the audience at the press conference, where I recognized my friend and long-time New York ufologist Mike Luckman wearing a yellow shirt; the film ends with close-up of Gairy and Wellington Friday.

Colman von Keviczky knew Prime Minister Gairy pretty well and was also an advisor to the project in 1977. However, he and Hynek didn’t get along—they had very different personalities and approaches to the issue—so Colman was left out of roster in 1978. A speech given by Wellington Friday to the Special Political Committee’s 35th meeting a year earlier, on November 28, 1977, however, goes on for several pages listing for the record all the efforts that von Keviczky had made trying to bring the UFO subject inside the United Nations. We shall publish some of these rare UN UFO documents from the ICUFON Archives in a future article on openminds.tv.

September 7, 1820 France, Embrun – During a Lunar Eclipse, Francois Arago (astronomer/ mathematician and director of the Paris observatory) saw a group of “flying ovals” cross the darkened moon’s face. The objects were luminous, and moving at great speed. Francois Arago wrote of this date in the ‘Annales de chimie et de physique’: “Numerous observers have seen, during an eclipse of the moon, strange objects moving in straight lines. They were equally spaced and remained in line when they made turns. Their movements made a military precision.” Source: Otto Binder reports. (Authenticated by Jacques Vallee)

Illustration of bright dots seen on the moon crater Plato in 1877.

In 1877, bright dots/lights were observed converging on the crater Plato. In addition, two steaks of medium intensity light were recorded on June 14, 1940, in the crater Plato, a location where reports of lights have numbered in the thousands. Source: Otto Binder Reports/Jim Marrs Alien Agenda

Illustration of object seen by Dr. Frank Halstead.

Dr. Frank Halstead, (curator of the Darling Observatory in Duluth, Minnesota) described an object he and his assistant observed through a telescope on July 6, 1954. It looked like a “straight black line” on the floor of the crater Piccolomini, where no such line had been noted before. It has not been seen since. Halstead later stated that “many professional astronomers are convinced that saucers are interplanetary machines.” Source – Timothy Good Alien Base

In late January 2011, business leaders from around the world met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for the 5th annual Global Competitiveness Forum and of the many issues tackled UFOs and extraterrestrial life was one of them. Now they have put videos of the event on YouTube for all to see. You can view them below.

World Leaders such as Tony Blair and Bill Clinton attended the conference, although they did not attend the UFO portion of the event. Leaders in UFO research were on hand to discuss its validity and potential for the advancement of global business. Jacques Vallee, a computer scientist, venture capitalist and long-time UFO researcher was among the speakers, as well as physicists, Dr. Michio Kaku and Stanton Friedman, author and journalist, Nick Pope, who worked for the UK Ministry of Defence investigating UFOs, and Dr. Zaghloul El Naggar, an accomplished and well respected professor of earth sciences. The UFO section of the event was called Contact: Learning from Outer Space, and was moderated by Harvard business professor, John Quelch.

The website for the event describes the UFO portion as:

Psychological and socio-cultural assumptions and preconceptions constrain us to a large extent, and shape our views of the universe so that we are inclined to find what we are looking for, and fail to see what we are not. Using knowledge gained from research in the fields of Ufology and the search for extraterrestrial life, what might we possibly learn about hindrances to innovation in other areas of inquiry?

The sponsor of the entire event, by the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA), describes itself as the “guardian angel” of business in Saudi Arabia. An impressive and important event, their website describes the event as:

The Global Competitiveness Forum (GCF), the only event of its kind, is an annual meeting of global business leaders, international political leaders, and selected intellectuals and journalists brought together to create a dialogue with respect to the positive impact organizational and national competitiveness can have on local, regional and global economic and social development. It was founded in 2006 by the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA), and is held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia under the patronage of HM King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.

Jacques Vallee's presentation. (image credit: GCF2011)

Here are videos of the UFO portions of the event.

Jacques Vallee: General Partner, SBV Venture Partners

Michio Kaku: Professor of Theoretical Physics, City University of New York, Host of Sci Fi Science on the Discovery/Science TV Channel

Nick Pope: Author, Journalist

Stanton Friedman: Nuclear Physicist, Lecturer, Author

Zaghloul El Naggar: Professor of Earth Sciences

For more on the GCF you can visit their official website here. To watch more videos from the event you can visit their YouTube page here.

]]>http://www.openminds.tv/saudi-arabia-forum-videos-ufo-lectures-627/8401/feed1UFO Year in Review 2010http://www.openminds.tv/ufo-year-in-review-2010-620/8301
http://www.openminds.tv/ufo-year-in-review-2010-620/8301#commentsWed, 02 Mar 2011 19:07:45 +0000http://www.openminds.tv/?p=8301Why are we writing a story about the year in review when it is already the first week of March? Well, that is because we just wrapped up the 2011 International UFO Congress (IUFOC), and to start things off we reviewed the past year’s UFO news stories beginning from last February, the date of the last IUFOC.

A lot has happened in the last year. We couldn’t include everything, because we were trying to keep the video to less than 15 minutes, but we packed in a lot. It is another demonstration of how active this field is on a regular basis.

Note: One book that is not in the video which I have written about quite a bit, and thoroughly enjoyed is A.D.: After Disclosure. In the frenzy to get everything ready for the conference somehow I left it out. However, there are other books I left out also. If you feel there is a story or book that I left out that you think needs attention, feel free to comment below so others can be aware.

]]>http://www.openminds.tv/ufo-year-in-review-2010-620/8301/feed1Jacques Vallée interviewed on Open Minds Radiohttp://www.openminds.tv/jacques-vallee-interviewed-on-open-minds-radio-540/6430
http://www.openminds.tv/jacques-vallee-interviewed-on-open-minds-radio-540/6430#respondTue, 09 Nov 2010 15:02:35 +0000http://www.openminds.tv/?p=6430Scientist, author, and UFO researcher Jacques Vallée was the guest on Open Minds Radio last night. Host Alejandro Rojas interviewed Vallée as they discussed Vallée’s background and his recently released book, Wonders in the Sky: Unexplained Aerial Objects from Antiquity to Modern Times.